My Blog

Posts for: June, 2016

Not sure if you need a filling? The symptoms of tooth decay aren't always obvious, particularly during the early stages. Dr.Michael Wing, your Huntersville, NC, dentist, shares a few signs that may indicate that you have a cavity.

A nagging toothache

Pain in a tooth isn't normal and may be an indication that you have a cavity. If tooth decay is the reason for your pain, you may notice that eating sweet food or consuming cold foods and beverages worsens the pain. Biting or putting pressure on the tooth can also increase your pain. If pain is accompanied by a fever, or you notice pus, inflammation or swelling around your tooth, call your dentist immediately, as these symptoms can occur if you have an abscess.

A hole in your tooth

When acids eat away at your tooth enamel, they create holes. During the earliest stages of tooth decay, you may not be able to see these holes, but as the decayed area expands, the holes become much more noticeable.

Dark spots on your teeth

You may notice a black or brown spot on your tooth if you have a cavity. If thorough brushing doesn't remove the spot, chances are that tooth decay is to blame.

Bad breath

Your toothbrush bristles may not be able to reach the holes in your teeth created by tooth decay. If food particles get caught in the holes, they'll begin to rot, which may cause your breath to smell bad.

How can a filling help me?

When you have a filling, your dentist removes the decayed part of your tooth and replaces it with a durable filling material that restores and seals the tooth. Once your filling is in place, you'll be able to eat without pain.

Are you concerned about a painful tooth? Call Dr. Michael Wing, your Huntersville, NC, dentist, at (704) 997-8280 to schedule a dental exam. Restore your tooth with a filling!

Everyone has to face the music at some time — even John Lydon, former lead singer of The Sex Pistols, arguably England’s best known punk rock band. The 59-year old musician was once better known by his stage name, Johnny Rotten — a brash reference to the visibly degraded state of his teeth. But in the decades since his band broke up, Lydon’s lifelong deficiency in dental hygiene had begun to cause him serious problems.

In recent years, Lydon has had several dental surgeries — including one to resolve two serious abscesses in his mouth, which left him with stitches in his gums and a temporary speech impediment. Photos show that he also had missing teeth, which, sources say, he opted to replace with dental implants.

For Lydon (and many others in the same situation) that’s likely to be an excellent choice. Dental implants are the gold standard for tooth replacement today, for some very good reasons. The most natural-looking of all tooth replacements, implants also have a higher success rate than any other method: over 95 percent. They can be used to replace one tooth, several teeth, or an entire arch (top or bottom row) of teeth. And with only routine care, they can last for the rest of your life.

Like natural teeth, dental implants get support from the bone in your jaw. The implant itself — a screw-like titanium post — is inserted into the jaw in a minor surgical operation. The lifelike, visible part of the tooth — the crown — is attached to the implant by a sturdy connector called an abutment. In time, the titanium metal of the implant actually becomes fused with the living bone tissue. This not only provides a solid anchorage for the prosthetic, but it also prevents bone loss at the site of the missing tooth — which is something neither bridgework nor dentures can do.

It’s true that implants may have a higher initial cost than other tooth replacement methods; in the long run, however, they may prove more economical. Over time, the cost of repeated dental treatments and periodic replacement of shorter-lived tooth restorations (not to mention lost time and discomfort) can easily exceed the expense of implants.

That’s a lesson John Lydon has learned. “A lot of ill health came from neglecting my teeth,” he told a newspaper reporter. “I felt sick all the time, and I decided to do something about it… I’ve had all kinds of abscesses, jaw surgery. It costs money and is very painful. So Johnny says: ‘Get your brush!’”

All crowns are designed to restore functionality to a damaged tooth. But crowns can differ from one another in their appearance, in the material they’re made from, and how they blend with other teeth.

A crown is a metal or porcelain artifice that’s bonded permanently over a decayed or damaged tooth. Every crown process begins with preparation of the tooth so the crown will fit over it. Afterward, we make an impression of the prepared tooth digitally or with an elastic material that most often is sent to a dental laboratory to create the new crown.

It’s at this point where crown composition and design can diverge. Most of the first known crowns were made of metal (usually gold or silver), which is still a component in some crowns today. A few decades ago dental porcelain, a form of ceramic that could provide a tooth-like appearance, began to emerge as a crown material. The first types of porcelain could match a real tooth’s color or texture, but were brittle and didn’t hold up well to biting forces. Dentists developed a crown with a metal interior for strength and a fused outside layer of porcelain for appearance.

This hybrid became the crown design of choice up until the last decade. It is being overtaken, though, by all-ceramic crowns made with new forms of more durable porcelain, some strengthened with a material known as Lucite. Today, only about 40% of crowns installed annually are the metal-porcelain hybrid, while all-porcelain crowns are growing in popularity.

Of course, these newer porcelain crowns and the attention to the artistic detail they require are often more expensive than more traditional crowns. If you depend on dental insurance to help with your dental care costs, you may find your policy maximum benefit for these newer type crowns won’t cover the costs.

If you want the most affordable price and are satisfied primarily with restored function, a basic crown is still a viable choice. If, however, you would like a crown that does the most for your smile, you may want to consider one with newer, stronger porcelain and made with greater artistic detail by the dental technician. In either case, the crown you receive will restore lost function and provide some degree of improvement to the appearance of a damaged tooth.